Haze gray and here for three days. DESTROYER!!

So I'm down along the river having breakfast, and I notice something different on the Gov. Nicholls St. wharf skyline.

That wasn't there before.

I ride around the other side of the wharf and lookie, lookie!!

It's USS Lassen (DDG82), an Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer! She's here for the week-end and they're giving tours!

So I get all metal-detected (just like at the airport, only here there are four sailors with guns and plate carriers watching me "No pictures of the checkpoint please!") and head aboard.

This is NOT a World War Two destroyer like USS Kidd. It's much bigger. She's 509ft long, 60ft wide, and displaces 9,600 tons. Comes with a crew of 320.

Still has torpedo tubes though.

And 25mm guns.

But the welcome mat was out for guests today.

They took us aboard in small groups of ten (And I was in the first group) and took us all around her deck to show us stuff and tell us about her.

Port side 25mm gun.

With warnings and safety instructions. (See, it's not just Ruger and S&W doing this.)

A plaque commemorating her namesake, Lt. Clyde E. Lassen, a Vietnam War rescue helicopter pilot.

Let's read that up close.

No, they didn't name this ship after some gay-rights activist or Democrat party icon. This ship was named for a warrior and meant to go in harm's way.

Here's a sailor standing watch with an M-240. And he does have an ammo can at his feet.

Phalanx CIWS (Sea-Whiz) all ready for close-in anti-missile defense.

Forward 5"62 gun, with a range of 13NM and a rate of fire of 20 rounds per minute. Belt-fed (!!) and pretty much entirely automated.

Comes factory standard with two Vertical Launch Missile Systems (VLMS), one forward here, and one aft. This one holds 32 missiles and the aft launcher holds 64.

Port side torpedo tubes.

Then it was up one deck to see a display of damage-control/firefighting gear.

The young sailor giving this lecture had just turned 21. Average age of the ship's enlisted crew is 25 and they operate this ship in places like the Persian Gulf and the Spratley Islands. These are real Americans, and you won't see them out protesting or demanding "safe spaces".

Aft VMLS.

Aft CWIS

Sailor on aft port watch with his 240, doing what sailors on watch do.

Other sailors doing what sailors off watch do. They are still young Americans, after all.

Flight deck. This ship deploys with two MH-60R Seahawk helicopters. The tracks on the deck allow the helos to be locked down quickly then pulled into the hangars.


Another display for the tourists...now we're talking my language.

The M-14 only uses 10-rd box mags here, and they keep them aboard for line-throwing and shark watch. Anything else, it's all M-167/M-4 or the Mossberg shotgun and Beretta 9mm.

I did get to pet the M-14 though. Springfield Armory with a lock on the selector.

Starboard side rigid-hull boats.

This wonderful ship can support infantry ashore with her guns but the main role is tracking enemy submarines in conjunction with Naval Air P-8 aircraft. Her radars are so finely-tuned that they can spot sub periscopes breaking the water surface and this particular ship has played cat-and-mouse with plenty of Chinese subs in the Spratleys. And impressive as she is, the class is aging towards obsolescence already and the newer ships coming out are light years ahead of this one, and are both larger and have much smaller crews due to increased automation.

Too cool indeed, and many thanks to the crew of Lassen for the tour, for their service, and for coming to New Orleans.

Dead ship afloat

A few months ago, I had some free time while down in DC, so I decided to look in on a landmark that I've admired for a long time.

Moored on the Anacostia River is the ex-USS Barry, DD 933. She sits at a pier in the Washington Navy Yard, and she's been kept up and maintained by the Navy as a museum ship since 1984, two years after she was decommissioned following 24 years of active service, including deployments to Vietnam and to the Caribbean during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Barry, shadowing a Soviet freighter off Cuba, with a P-3 Orion overhead.

Barry in November, 2015.

Aaron of The Shekel and I were aboard her once some years ago. We even visited a couple of the "off limits to everyone except us" areas during our self-guided tour and actually didn't get tossed off when caught not once but twice. I liked those Navy guys.

She's now closed for good, and the Navy is set to tow her off for scrap, probably early this year. It's a sad end indeed to a fine and noble ship, and one that shouldn't go unheralded.

Photos taken from across the river really weren't enough to do this proud ship justice, so I drove over to the Navy Yard and made my way down pierside to take some proper last pics.

I pulled every string I could pull to get aboard for some photos but per the director of the facility: "No one will ever board her again".

Barry's forward 5" gun, with "E" for Excellence.

During one mission in Vietnam, Barry sailed up the Saigon River to support the US Army and and put over 1500 5" shells on Vietcong positions miles away.

Can any vets help with these awards?

Mk32 Torpedo launcher, port side.

Motor Whale Boat

Just visible under the canopy is the Barry's ASROC launcher.

It's identical to the one that OldAFSarge and I checked out on the USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. in Battleship cove this past fall.

Stern 5" gun

Flagstaff is devoid of colors now. That's sad.

With the scrapping of the Barry, only two Forrest Sherman-class destroyers will remain, both museum ships. That'd be the Edson in Bay City, MI and the Turner Joy in Bremerton, WA.


This website has probably the most comprehensive collection of Barry photos, inside and out. It's worth the click.

If I hit Wednesday's Powerball, Barry will have a new home. Failing that, she'll be enroute to the breakers' yard in short order and we'll al be that much poorer for the loss.